Despite the heat blooming in my core, my mouth forms an untamed yawn.
Liam’s lips twitch. “Let’s go to bed.”
“And stare at ourselves?”
His laugh turns into a matching yawn. I’m too tired to protest further, even though every move I make is done with hyperawareness. I unzip my suitcase and fish out my pajamas while Liam strips everything but his T-shirt and boxers. I grab my toiletries kit and scurry off to the bathroom to change, brush my teeth, and wash my face.
When I emerge, the curtains have been closed, the lights have been dimmed, and Liam is on his preferred side of the bed plugging in his phone to charge. When he turns back toward me, his expression changes.
“Fuck,” he says.
Immediately, I go on the defensive. “They’re modest!”
I’m in loose drawstring pajama shorts and a matching short-sleeve collared top. Cotton.
With baseballs on them.
Happy Birthday, Bristol baby. Now I’m in your bed even when I’m not.
Liam opens his mouth, closes it. Opens it again. “You still have those?”
“I can put on a T-shirt and sweatpants instead—”
“No,” he says. “I—like it.” His jaw works, and his arms stretch up, settling behind his head. He laughs weakly, but it’s halfway a sigh. “In those, you truly look like my girlfriend.” He says it as if he’d been unconvinced until this moment.
I gulp down the heat in my throat and crawl under the covers.
“How often do you wear them?” he asks, looking down at me.
“Every night.”
There’s a pause. His voice is gruff. “Every night,” he repeats.
“They’re comfortable,” I say.
And they’ve always reminded me you were real.
Liam points his head at the ceiling. I meet his gaze in the mirror above us. Seeing us together, in bed—it feels like a surrealist work of art.
“Folly would love this mirror,” I say. “She’s been really into the Kama Sutra lately. Something about being pregnant has her horny all the time.”
“Please don’t use ‘Folly’ and ‘horny’ in the same sentence in my presence ever again.”
I smile at him in the mirror. “She’s been fucking the oyster guy.”
“Or ‘fucking’ and ‘oyster,’ for that matter.”
“It was nice, seeing you two catching up over coffee.”
Liam shifts to look at the real me, sliding his upper body down the pillows. “How did Folly react when you told her you were going to college?”
I sift through my memories, recalling each of my sisters’ reactions to the news. Maren had always wanted to be the first person in our family to go to college. Even when I was young, I remember her saying it, like a mantra.
I’m going to college after high school. I’m leaving Bristol, but I’mnot leaving our family. You can always count on me, Paige. Even when I’m not here.
Dad loved her for it. Maren was bright, well-liked, well-spoken. She was the embodiment of an oldest child. She picked up our parents’ slack, acted strict when Dad wouldn’t, mothered us to the point of acquiescent annoyance. Once she was gone, she called home every two weeks on the dot to remind us all that she wasn’t like our mom. College was a no-brainer for Maren, and when law school came along after that, no one batted an eye.
All while Candice—in the habit of many second children—decided to do the exact opposite. She’s the most soft-spoken of the Lancaster girls. In high school, she had such an eye for thrifting that she opened a pop-up tent outside a coffee shop and made a killing off secondhand clothes. After graduation, Candice moved to Illinois with her girlfriend and eventually went to cosmetology school. She now works as a hairstylist, saving up for her own studio space.
